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Impact of sonication on the rheological and colloidal properties of highly concentrated cellulose nanocrystal suspensions

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Abstract

The effect of sonication on a highly concentrated commercial suspension of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) and the resulting rheological properties have been investigated. Rheology and structural analysis techniques (atomic force microscopy, small-angle X-ray scattering, transmission electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering) were used to characterize the CNC suspension before and after sonication as a function of concentration. The highly concentrated CNC suspension, which does not contain aggregates, as shown by AFM and TEM imaging, turns from a “gel” form into a “liquid” form after a sonication treatment. The self-organization properties of as-prepared and sonicated suspensions were compared by the determination of their phase diagrams and flow rheology was performed to understand the viscosity behavior as a function of concentration for both systems. Sonication induced a decrease of the inter-particular distance, a strong decrease of the viscosity and remarkable changes in the liquid crystalline behavior, while sonicated and non-sonicated suspensions were stable over time. These effects can be attributed to a decrease in the aspect ratio of the suspended particles, which varies from a high value before sonication due to the presence of elongated bundles to a lower value after sonication that promotes individualization.

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Acknowledgment

This work has been partially supported by the PolyNat Carnot Institute (Investissements d’Avenir - grant agreement n°ANR-11-CARN-007-01). This research has been possible thanks to the facilities of the TekLiCell platform funded by the Région Rhône-Alpes (ERDF: European regional development fund). We thank the NanoBio-ICMG platform (Grenoble, FR 2607) for granting access to the Electron Microscopy facility. This work benefitted from SasView software 4.0.1, originally developed by the DANSE project under NSF award DMR-0520547 (SasView, http://www.sasview.org/). The Laboratoire Rhéologie et Procédés is part of the LabEx Tec21 (Investissements d’Avenir – grant agreement ANR-11-LABX-0033). All laboratories are part of Institut Carnot PolyNat (Investissements d’Avenir – grant agreement ANR-11-CARN-030-01) and the Glyco@Alps program (Initiative d’Excellence – grant agreement ANR-15-IDEX-02). We gratefully acknowledge the ESRF for the beam time allocation (proposal SC 4177).

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  1. Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, LGP2, 38000, Grenoble, France

    Erwan Gicquel, Julien Bras & Céline Martin

  2. Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, LRP, 38000, Grenoble, France

    Candice Rey & Frédéric Pignon

  3. Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, CERMAV, 38000, Grenoble, France

    Jean-Luc Putaux & Bruno Jean

  4. Institut Universitaire de France, 75000, Paris, France

    Julien Bras

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  1. Erwan Gicquel
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Gicquel, E., Bras, J., Rey, C. et al. Impact of sonication on the rheological and colloidal properties of highly concentrated cellulose nanocrystal suspensions. Cellulose 26, 7619–7634 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-019-02622-7

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